A Leap of Faith: The Promise of Partnership

By Manuel N. Gómez

Throughout its relatively short history, the partnership movement has made
rustling noises in the backwoods of education, lacking not enthusiasm, but
a solid philosophical grounding to guide and nourish its efforts. The
only philosophy, if it can be called that, associated with partnership has
been reform. Unfortunately, reform is not a philosophy, but rather a
convenient battle cry for those who blame the education system for
societal problems. An implicit understanding that education and democracy
are inextricably linked has been substituted for philosophical engagement
with the complex dynamics of educational partnerships. Within our best
intentions have been planted the seeds of our failure to produce
educational change on a large scale. And in the process, we are beginning
to lose our faith.

It is all too tempting to lose faith in education right now. It is all
too tempting to take the low road, the path of least resistance, or the
well-worn path and euphemistically "opt out" of the whole business. As it
stands, the South is still facing questions of desegregation that should
have been settled forty years ago; California is facing the end of the
educational gold rush with the passage of Proposition 187 and the imminent
vote on the California Civil Rights initiative; affirmative action has
been disavowed in the Hopwood decision and the 1995 vote of the University
of California Regents; and the nation wonders what to do with all the
broken promises for equalityI. O. U.'s which litter the American
conscience. It is a difficult time to keep the faith.

We have seen many cogent and incisive critiques of American education, and
yet we still lack the descriptive vocabulary and the conceptual framework
in which to promote change effectively, efficiently, and consistently.
Terms like equity, excellence, empowerment, shared
governance, and even partnership have been slowly emptied out
of value through their conspicuous consumption by the "education market."
Before we can expect substantive and desirable change, we must reinvest
the vocabulary of collaborative work with concrete meaning, a project
which requires rigor and sophistication on both theoretical and practical
levels. Further, we must understand that our work coalesces with some of
the most vexing questions that underlie the interdependence of education
and the democratic process.

The rumblings in California against affirmative action policies are now
resonating nationally. Democracy, diversity, and education mingle within
debates over affirmative action policies and the tension between
individual and group interests. The "concept" of diversity has been
linked with questions of merit and "common values," in short with the
question of how America can maintain a common national identity with the
cultural heterogeneity of its demos. Educators who have maintained a
prominent role in the assimilative machinery of American bureaucracy,
struggle to raise academic standards, diversify educational opportunities,
and increase student achievement against a growing chorus of voices which
elide merit and ethnicity. As Christopher Lasch puts it, "meritocracy is
a parody of democracy" (41). Individuals considered meritorious are often
those who have access to more cultural and financial capital, which still
largely distributes itself along racial, class, and gender lines.

The increased stratification of American society and the backlash against
legislative intervention on behalf of diversity have compounded feelings
of isolation and alienation between educational sectors. Accusations that
K-12 does not adequately prepare students, that higher education is
elitist and out of touch with reality, and that community colleges abandon
students in transition have made us both weary and wary of pursuing
collaborative projects. And in the meantime, students who most need the
educational opportunities created through institutional collaboration have
to overcome more and more obstacles to upward academic mobility.

When they work, educational partnerships between higher education and
schools create a continuum of educational experience that supports and
protects the autonomy of the individual without a sacrifice of communal
coherence. Effective partnerships seek to model the democratic promise of
diversity within a community of individuals linked through shared
opportunities and experience. In America, democracy, diversity, and
education are intrinsically linked: ensuring the efficacy of
representative democracy requires a progressive education system, and the
progression of democracy depends on sustaining a diverse culture. Within
this matrix, it seems as if educational partnerships would naturally
evolve in the construction of a democratic national community.
Yet we know that this is not the case. Institutions have often
jealously protected their autonomy over and against egalitarian
collaboration. Higher education has relied on outreach programs which are
often laden with paternalistic good will. On the
K-12 level, questions relating to academic standards and curriculum
reform have often been driven by a desire to strike a balance between the
cultivation of cultural diversity and the assurance of cultural
mainstreaming. We know that the homogenization of values and ideas
results in societal stagnation and political
narrowness. Yet many argue that increased diversity threatens the
coherence of national identity and the ability to reach political
consensus.

Educators have struggled to find the balance between exclusiveness and
inclusiveness, autonomy and community, diversity and homogeneity. Schools
have been influenced by the demands of a Cold War mentality that confused
educational strength and military invulnerability. Economic hardships and
inequalities have emboldened the architects of vocational education, and
linguistic and cultural diversity has tested the limits of equal access
and opportunity. Even higher education, which has struggled to mainta in
its commitment to intellectual inquiry and the free circulation of ideas,
has become increasingly narrow through what Lasch characterizes as "the
university's assimilation into the corporate order" (193). It seems that
we have forgotten John Dewey's insight that "democracy is more than a form
of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint
communicated experience" (87).

To some extent, the "greatest good for all" of American democracy has
become the "greatest good for some" of utilitarianism. The reservation
system and Indian schools for Native Americans represent the dark side of
educational socialization; segregation still exists, both formally and
informally, between whites and African Americans; Asian Americans suffer
backlash for superior academic performance and commitment to collective
achievement; and Latinos endure tracking and must continue to defend their
status as legitimate Americans. While we may have achieved cultural
diversity, we still do not quite believe that diversity is intrinsic to
the survival of a democratic society.

Although the forces which push and pull at the fabric of American public
education are varied and complex, they engage one another on the question
of diversity, both racial and cultural. As Sarason argues, "It is a
cliché to say that we are a nation of immigrants, but it is not a
cliché to say that few people realize how the pluralism of our
society has made schools frequent scenes of ideological battle" (24).
Despite the national rhetoric of multi-culturalism, there remains a
deeply-rooted suspicion in America that identity ultimately devolves to an
irreducible category like race or gender. However, such reasoning ignores
the arguments of many historians, including Theodore Allen and Ronald
Takaki, who argue that race, like culture, is socially constructed, not
intrinsic and transcendental. If this is true, then identity is much more
fluid and flexible, and differences can be seen as circumstantial rather
than essential.

One of the stumbling blocks to the acceptance of
our actual diversity is a misconception that diversity is an external
rather than internal phenomenon. It is, in fact, both. In a society that
vigilantly protects individual autonomy, we often forget that
building community requires the recognition that boundaries are arbitrary
and fluid. Diversity, in addition to differences between individuals and
groups, is about recognizing within ourselves that our identities are not
fixed in a binary opposition: black-white, native-foreign,
ourselves-other. Rather, we exist within a complex matrix of shifting
identities, both within and between ourselves. While difficult, this
recognition is essential to the construction of communities which can
successfully negotiate individual and group interests. Too often, we
create our identities within fragilely constructed oppositions that
flimsily disguise the fears of inadequacy and failure that nag at us. We
shift between polar extremes, certain that to choose any point on the
continuum requires sacrifice and loss of identity. The anticipation of
loss confounds attempts we make to accept our diversity. Until we
understand that our similarities do not disempower us, but rather create a
profound synergy, we will not be able to acknowledge difference in a
compassionate way.

My experience bears out this wisdom. At the beginning of my career in
education, I started my work in the Oakland public schools primarily out
of a commitment to the Chicano movement, and my loyalties lay within this
community of scholars and activists.
As I moved through the labyrinthine world of education, however, I
realized that my identity as a Chicano was only one facet of myself, and
my perspective began to extend beyond the narrow categories of race. Over
the years, I have become more and more aware of the ways in which we all
belong to several communities at once, and these multiple memberships
often reflect corresponding interests and goals. Consequently, I have
found that focusing on the common interests of communities in order to
form coalitions dedicated to cooperative action offers the best strategy
for social and political change. It is, in fact, on this basis that
American democracy is preserved and renewed.

In terms of education, partnership is the means by which we can renew a
national
commitment to the health of American democracy. As bell hooks has said,
"The classroom is the most radical space of possibility in the academy"
(12). Extending this promise
into K-12 classrooms requires committed collaborative projects on a
national scale. The creation of a community in which intellectual freedom
and rigor can take place without sacrificing egalitarianism is essential
if education is to evolve closer to the promise of participatory
democracy. We must realize that to teach only traditionally canonical
works does not represent a rigorous intellectual curriculum, and we must
simultaneously realize that programs to increase representation of
underrepresented groups can lead to a similar isolation and intellectual
narrowness. In short, we must understand the ethical imperative of
partnership as one which seeks a balance between assimilation and
separatism.

Essential to the fulfillment of this promise is a
reinvigoration of intellectual development at all levels of education.
Above raising academic standards, beyond the recent attempts to fortify
critical reading, thinking, and writing skills among students ,
intellectual development requires a liberal arts emphasis which values
the liberatory consequences of intellectual inquiry. Richard Hofstadter
has distinguished intellect from intelligence­what is most often
cultivated in educationsaying,

...intelligence is an excellence of mind that is employed within a fairly
narrow, immediate, and predictable range....Intellect, on the other hand,
is the critical, creative, and contemplative side of mind. Whereas
intelligence seeks to grasp, manipulate,
re-order, adjust, intellect examines, ponders, wonders, theorizes,
criticizes, imagines. Intelligence will seize the immediate meaning in a
situation and evaluate it. Intellect evaluates evaluations, and looks for
the meanings of situations as a whole.
(25)

For Hofstadter, intellect is associated primarily with "human dignity" and
with the kind of thinking that reaches the essential or fundamental levels
of understanding. Suspected for its role in subverting the status quo and
mistakenly associated with performance on IQ and standardized tests,
intellect has been gingerly handled by Americans. Often seen as the
exclusive property of higher education (mistakenly and often derisively),
and assumed to be uninteresting to or beyond the grasp of students who do
not fit into the educational mainstream, intellect has slowly seeped out
of contemporary pedagogy. Critical thinking has been touted as a return
to intellectualized education; yet how well can a system driven by the
ideological mandates of social functionalism, life adjustment, and civic
duty accommodate the kind of inquiry that will bring these very principles
into question? The assimilative function of education is antithetical to
this level of debate.

Intellectual education and an intellectual demos are essential to the
changing faces of American cultural identity and questions of how cultural
identity intersects with national identity. While the "practical quality"
of intelligence (Hofstadter, 41) is
certainly important to cultivate, it has not allowed us to move away from
the corporatization and professionalization of education. Consequently,
the superficial markers of difference­race, gender, ethnicity,
culture, socio-economic class­seem
more natural than they really are. Intellect, on the other hand, goes
further towards establishing a common ground for debate and negotiation
through its emphasis on fundamental questions related to the nature of
knowledge and understanding. Through intellectual engagement, individuals
are connected in a common commitment to inquiry. The continual process of
negotiation that ensues does not contradict the possibility of consensus
or of truth; in fact, it more precisely reflects the dynamics of
participatory democracy. For too long we have imagined that the
construction of a stable democratic community depends on inculcating
ideology that passes for truth, rather than on a collective search for
truth. Education has capitulated to this myth by limiting instruction to
subjects and categories of "truth" which often reflect subjective cultural
values in the guise of objectivity.

As Jacques Barzun argues, "intellect is community property." It is "the
capitalized and communal form of live intelligence," transcending without
nullifying intelligence (4). Intellect is not elitist nor selective in
its distribution. Rather, it enables communication and understanding
across fields of difference and distrust. Intellect is one of the most
democratic of civic virtues, ennobling the American mind. Yet without
educational partnerships between institutions, the intellectual
development of
our students will continue to atrophy, as the "educational market" grows
and nourishes itself on the carcass of a weakened educational
infrastructure.

We must acknowledge and embrace the interdependence of educational
institutions at all levels and enhance the "live intelligence" on which
the stability of a democratic community depends. If educators cannot
model the ideal of a collaborative, egalitarian community, how can we
expect our students to participate actively in the democratic process? How
can we criticize efforts to incorporate education for capitalizing on our
failure to intellectually engage students in the educational process?
Although things seem bleak, we should not be too quick to signal our
defeat. In fact, the abrupt political changes now underway may ironically
serve to strengthen the interests of educational collaboration. Nothing
short of a leap of faith will renew the promise
of partnership.

References

Allen, T. (1994). The Invention of the White Race. New York:
Verso.

Barzun, J. (1959). The House of Intellect. New York: Harper &
Brothers Publishers.